Evaluation of Inductively Couple Plasma-time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry for Laser Ablation Analyses

Abstract

The purpose of this trip to LECO Corporation was to test the non-matrix matched calibration method and the principal component analysis (PCA) method on a laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-time of flight mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-TOFMS) system. An LA-ICP-TOFMS system allows for multielement single-shot analysis as well as spatial analysis on small samples, because the TOFMS acquires an entire mass spectrum for all ions extracted simultaneously from the ICP. The TOFMS system differs from the double-focusing mass spectrometer, on which the above methods were developed, by having lower sensitivity and lower mass resolution.